mr cube thanks to cope with the victory. for he will get. i leave you to let you go but the rush by the live. games of. drones have become one of the top u.s. military weapons in recent years and now the cia is asking the white house to approve an expansion of their drones program does this mean the spy agency is turning into a paramilitary force will question more. and the race for the white house is extremely close between mitt romney and barack obama but could the election be tipped in one direction by employers dictating who their employees vote for well look at the force being applied by some bosses during the presidential campaign. right now we have absolutely no representation in the house or senate the congress controls our budget local money. taxation without representation you may think this

happens in some foreign country but it's actually taking place right here in washington d.c. residents of d.c. have no voice in congress so will this ever change we'll investigate. it's friday october nineteenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . all right well starting off this hour cia director david petraeus is urging the white house to expand the agency's drone fleet but try it said that the expansion will allow the cia to carry on with its missions in pakistan yemen and possible missions in north africa and the cia isn't the only one asking for more unmanned aerial vehicles in the next decade defense spending on known medium and large sized drones will be nearly forty billion die. alors the pentagon is planning to increase

its inventory by thirty five percent so let's compare the drone fleet with that we have now versus the one that we have planned for the future now as far as electronic warfare of recognizance drones goes the u.s. has five hundred thirty six operational you avi's and is planning to buy another one hundred forty five when it comes to light attack and reconnaissance drones two hundred fifty five of those are operational another five hundred eighty seven are planned so in total the u.s. has seven seven hundred ninety one operational drones right now and is planning to buy another seven hundred and thirty two now it's important to note that these are only air base drones meanwhile pew research center a study by them now shows that the international attitudes about the u.s. using drones of abroad is visible within the u.s. approval is the highest with about sixty two percent of people approving but then going down the list countries drop from there with

a forty four percent approval rating in the u.k. five percent approval rating in greece and twenty four percent in lebanon and you can see the other countries right there so to talk more about whether these drones are even necessary at this point in time lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer joined me earlier today he's the director for external communications center for the advanced defense studies i first asked him why the cia needs those drones in the first place take a look. you know i think this is one of those areas where i would consider mission creep one of the things that happened and let's be very clear drones go back to the one nine hundred fifty s. us or force used them for any number of purposes since then they've become much more sophisticated over the past ten years one of the things cia was doing back in the late ninety's early two thousand was what it was using drones for reconnaissance a very legitimate mission however it's redundant and this is where we need to be careful about who's doing the walk regarding military operations overseas special

operations command and the military also have a fleet of drones so the question becomes why do you need to fleets and is the cia's essentially as you pointed out your direction ramping up to be a parent paramilitary organization is that in our interests i would argue no during world war two we had some occult o.s.'s office of strategic services it did both the intelligence collection mission special operations mission and a lot of us who are on the inside studying the budget issues where we talk about being more efficient not loaded really are asking why do we need both of these things so i think drop the charges does call for this at this point time especially in light of president obama's narrative that we're quote unquote shutting down the wars really calls to question why wait why do we need all of these drones if we're actually rushing back our military and tony say about the often just what you just said there in the past ten years we've really seen a blur between excuse me. tween military operations and the cia now the cia was supposed to be so all the intelligence gathering service and now they're conducting

these operations how can you talk a little bit about this test and also whether or not it is here to stay right well the cia has always had something in its responsibility called covert action covert action is something you do clandestinely but the the results are are over you can see the results this is been part of their d.n.a. from day one i'm not saying that they shouldn't do that what i'm saying is you need to use that capability on a limited basis focused only solely on strategic issues. arguably the military the department of defense does things to defend our nation and when it comes to this sort of thing d.o.d. has always had the capability to do what we call black operations which is different by definition only sometimes then than covert action and this is one of those things that we have to have a smarter congress smarter white house determine what is needed and then ask congress to fund that rather than allow everybody this indefinite expansion of capabilities and that's what we see here kind of this hey we think this is a good idea let's fund it without regard to what is the actual threat or do we

actually trying to build capability to defend ourselves against again this is why we have to take a step back and say do we really need all of this at a time that we have difficult challenges regarding budget i mean we're about to go see susan seaquest ration for goodness sake is this to best use of our limited defense researchers and tony i also think it's important to note that general petraeus was in charge of of the afghanistan and iraq operations up until a little bit more than a year ago now he had a vast arsenal of drones and his pocket back then and now he has only about thirty to thirty five according to the cia reports so right i mean i have to ask you is this an example of a tried and true policy being pushed through the back door. absolutely and what i've said i said right here in our team and i said this on other networks what you see is the president the the present president raising the obama white house becoming overreliant on drones one of the things about those that these drones are

part of the kill capture program always forgotten is the capture part of the program dead men tell no tales and we have created a dearth of intelligence by the fact we capturing people were interrogating them that's why you saw a lot of things going on regarding this resurgence of al qaida because as a senator dianne feinstein said yesterday we don't do well in human intelligence human intelligence is getting inside those networks drones don't help you do that my suggestion to drop a trace get back to the p. and q. p.d.q. the piece. accused of actually doing human intelligence what c.i. supposed to be doing and step away from the technology and tony what we're also seeing is that it's not just kind of that they're focusing on they're also focusing on the hakani network can you talk a little bit about the difference between maybe the people that the cia is focusing on with these drones and the people and organizations that the drones what's the military are focusing on or are they in fact one in the same well the blind the real truth here is that you have both organizations looking at key leadership what

we call high value targets when i was there in zero three zero four we had a list see i had a lot of those guys with one of the same there's cheers on that list and that's where you divide up the radically you're going after he goes after u.c.i. goes after with that said there's a lot of overlap there's tons of overlap and we have a closer battlefield without any clear and indication of how we're going to sort through this and do it work one of the unpleasant truths is a kind of network was used to our benefit during the soviet occupation it's being used against us now because we failed to understand the politics of pakistan and we're suffering the results of that again good human intelligence would help solve this using drones to kill mid-level leaders is not helping is creating the next generation of leaders who are more committed to the death and destruction of united states and our allies much more than the ones we were dealing with before so i don't see the drone program as a path to victory in the current application and tony like you said we are losing a vast database of knowledge where every single time that we need to straw

a different compound after that we lose the possibility of being able to stop for future attack by not being able to gather that information but i don't want to put the conversation just a little bit to libya now the new york times reportedly tracked down and interviewed one of the ringleaders behind the september eleventh benghazi attack meanwhile president obama is saying that the u.s. is still sorting through the information now given libya's shaky situation i mean what are the chances that this man and others potentially responsible for this attack will be held accountable for their actions and i mean what is taking so long . two things first this administration one of the slow roll this and let me make it very clear you know when you talk about taking three weeks to get an f.b.i. team to benghazi let me tell you something went to churchill was here in washington d.c. within two weeks of the beginning of war two so if you can move with the church of the washington d.c. in two weeks i think you can move an f.b.i.

team using twenty first exit technology to benghazi that was a choice with that said i think there's a lot of things that we missed ration doesn't want to come out that's why you see a slow roll here and more importantly while there are drones now circling libya the administration's admitted this they going to do a thing until after the eighth of november as far as i can tell because the optic would be all wrong so much of what's going on right now is all about trying to slow roll this to make sure that we don't see anything that looks. like it does goes against the white house narrative until after the election it's a political issue let me tell you from here my guys inside we knew about this within twenty four hours we had the capability of f.b.i. guys there within twenty four hours the white house and others have chosen to not exercise the capability with a lot of money to have one point is just so surprising that the new york times was allegedly able to track down this man apparently he was in a very high class hotel lobby sipping on a strawberry frappuccino and he was actually tossing the u.s. saying it's your fault that this happened that we don't want you here and that is nothing is going to happen against them but let me ask you one more question today

there was a car bombing in lebanon it was one of the most. horrible an incident that happened in lebanon last four years obviously there was a lot back in the ninety's but up until last four years it's been pretty peaceful now the region talking about the middle east and north africa continues to see this influx of instability are we getting to the point where intervention in the region will be inevitable just a call the violence. no i don't see it as being practical i'm at reagan republican and president reagan learned a hard lesson of lebanon when we try to have the marine corps there doing essentially peacekeeping operations as much as it pains me to see people die especially in service syria it is not our job to straighten out local issues i think we need to be very clear what the american interests are what we have to do to protect the american people and frankly it is up to the people who live there to work their issues out there we have allies there absolutely should we help our allies yes turkey turkey is an ally you know jordan for the most part as an ally we

need to look at how we work with our friends but not take the place of their work within what they have to do to protect their borders and their interests lieutenant colonel anthony shaffer our director for commute external communications for the center of the vance defense studies we appreciate your time sir thank you. still ahead on r t they control your salary your work schedule and your days off and now some business owners want to control your votes too and the best part is talking politics with employees is perfectly legal the details when we come back.

this presidential election is not just about obama and romney there are also third party candidates on the ticket and they will influence its outcome see a debate among this nation's major third party candidates right here on r t out of the twenty third. i. well we are team minus eighteen days until the presidential election and critics are already saying that voter intimidation and voter id laws will affect the outcome of the selection now over the past few weeks we've told you about a few cases where employers are pushing their political views on employees now we'd like to say that this is not the norm we'd like to report that this is illegal and

that steps are being taken to address the alleged voter intimidation but neither of those happens to be the case here's a compilation of some of the most egregious offenders earlier this month the koch brothers sent out a letter to over forty five thousand of their employees at georgia pacific saying quote if we elect candidates who want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars and borrowed money on costly new subsidies for a few favored cronies put unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses prevent or delay important new construction projects and excessively hinder free trade than many of our more than fifty thousand us employees and contractors may suffer the consequences including higher gasoline prices runaway inflation and other ills this is true regardless of what your politician might be. this letter came in a packet filled with information personalized by the state for which candidates of

the koch brothers approve of also part of the packet was the brochure you were looking at right now this one was approved for organ employees it provides information about voting deadlines as well as a list of candidates that have the koch stamp of approval the largest resort developers in the world in his letter to employees choice but to reduce the size of this company rather than grow this company i'll be forced to cut back this means fewer jobs less benefits and certainly less opportunity for everyone he went on to say that if this does happen and he closed the shop he won't be worried instead he says you can find him in the caribbean sitting on the beach under a palm tree retired and with no employees to worry about and let's not forget about bob murray the c.e.o. of murray energy if you recall he's the one that forced employees from west virginia coal mines to take a pay day off of work and attend a mitt romney speech in front of the mine he has also routinely asked his employees

donate their time and money to political causes that he supports and one letter he wrote quote what is so difficult about asking a well paid in salary employee to give us two or three hours of his time or her time every two months we have been insulted by every salaried employee who does not support our efforts more importantly we are going to lose what friends we have in washington d.c. at this very critical time while mines are closing all around us and obama has a limited forty five thirty unit coal fired power plants. now i know what you're thinking wait a minute i thought there were federal laws prohibiting employers from pushing political views well not true not this is a frame court ruling on citizens united turns out it wasn't just about money and super pacs the ruling was also allows employers to express electoral opinions to employees in private sector workplaces and they can also limit the amount of free

speech employees can have with the national labor relations act so why is this all happening is this a form of voter intimidation and what are the potential effects that this will have on the upcoming election to discuss this i was joined earlier by mike elk is a labor journalist and has brought us many of these stories here's his take i'm sure there was an instance where the union that represented a bunch of casino workers in las vegas got together with the company and they had a joint effort where the company allowed the union to push harry reid's action so yeah that happened but this was the union doing it and you know union is a body elected by workers and there's protections and contracts and you know union doesn't have the power to fire somebody for attending these kind of events so that's a big difference. you know there's no real legal protections if you are a non union worker there to prevent a boss from filing for political. simply on. you know and what happens in this kind

of situation is that it has a real chilling effect in the workplace when a boss says hey i'm billed for soandso and you're not voting for that guy you know what if you put up a yard sign for their guy or what if you didn't volunteer in your boss finds out about your job at risk and in this kind of economy i don't think a lot of people are willing to do that and i know that also mitt romney came out and this is your latest report is that mitt romney came out it in a conference a news conference and said that hey employers should be encouraging their employees to vote i think we have a clip of that let's play that really quick and then i'll get your opinions on that . i hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the coming elections and whether you agree with me or you agree with president obama or whatever your political view i hope i hope you pass those along to your employees nothing illegal about you talking to your employees about what you believe is best for the business so larry is saying that this is what's best for the business you

have no legal obligations other than to just say your personal opinion tell me about this report that you wrote and what the implications are of it so there's been a bunch of companies like you said that all of a sudden in the wake of citizens united pushing politics in the workplace and telling workers that if they don't vote for president obama they could get fired. and it's starting to look like this might be a cornett republican strategy here you have mitt romney encouraging a group of businessmen the national federation of independent business right. leaning group to get their employees to vote for romney and then you had a another story that was just broken about an hour ago by george tunic about herman cain and herman cain now is going around the country doing these training seminars training the small business owners and how they can pressure their employees into voting for mitt romney and what you're seeing is what happens in anti-union pains which is that you have a lot of workers that want to join the union i've seen so many cases like this you have seventy percent of the workers initially say they want to join the union when

you get a couple weeks of your boss saying hey we may close the plant we may close down and then folks change their opinion not everybody does but if you get ten percent of workers and one factory to change their vote because they think they might lose their job because the boss tells them something untrue. it's a pretty. campaign and not only that but they're also suppressing these employees from expressing their own political views so talk about this a little bit and more specifically what exactly they're suppressing so i did a story on georgia power. when they now have a social media policy that's very restrictive they say that you can't post anything even if it's non-work related the first poorly on georgia pacific which is owned by the koch brothers brand of reputation and this includes talking about the owners of georgia pacific the koch brothers so some workers have been told that they are posting too much about the koch brothers and it is being too political in that we had a worker who blew the whistle on the koch brothers in a story that mark ams and i wrote last year who was denied

a promotion despite having a very good score on his evaluation and it was written as a valuation and he talked about politics too much in the workplace so this is a real scary trend that employers are increasing their free speech rights to pressure their employees on the election while limiting the free speech rights of their employees to talk about their political views really does seem like they're trying to control the message and i know that all of this is possible as far as limiting speech goes but as i mentioned earlier the national labor relations act and it's also extending as i understand into the social media around where you're not allowed to say anything on twitter against your employee or your employer and that you can also be hurting yourself by expressing your political views if you have a facebook page and you like mitt romney or you like barack obama that could potentially be damaging on the right could potentially be damaging although the national labor relations board has read that has ruled that some of this activity is protected by the national labor relations act but it's unclear i talked to a liberal or this week if you were to georgia pacific and he posted something about the cokes anti-union activities that would be protected as part of union activists

but if you were to georgia pacific and you posted something about the coax environmental record that's not protected you could be fired for that so it's a real gray area and i also want to talk about the fact that it's not only do you we're going to stations is also a bigger organizations that we've seen i know one of them is delta delta airplane that we rise pretty frequently they actually gave incentives to employees to go to washington d.c. and lobby one of the things that they offered was cheaper fly it's upgrades to first class they said if you if you want to go to washington free flight there you go and if you want to. washington d.c. you want to lay a lobby for us against an anti-union bill against the federal air and ministration and you you feel free to do that and we will get you there so it's not only against or for presidential candidates it's also against unions that these companies are offering incentives delta was certainly a company that has done some of this in lobbying for an anti-union bill and last year delta push a referendum in georgia where they're trying to get workers to vote for delta was

really defensive today in the atlanta journal constitution saying that they haven't quite been engaged in this direct electioneering so companies are wary of this and i think there is a big backlash you know not at a nonunion company like delta but in terms of brand i think it really hurts but if you look at all the small business owners who are nonunion i think you're going to see a lot of intimidation and is there any way to solve this very quickly. folks or members of the union that can protect themselves everybody else here and i have to listen to the lessons of the speeches all right mike alkali labor journalist thank you so much for joining us we appreciate your opinion and while we are on the topic of elections and voting washington d.c. is the symbol of american power and freedom but as the license plate says this district has a long history of taxation without representation the shiites have no members representing them in either the house or the senate and yet they pay taxes like everyone else and in many cases much higher taxes are key correspondent liz wahl

takes a look at how this works and how do you see residents feel about the truth. in the nation's capital the iconic structures symbolize the country's democratic principles but if you live here in washington d.c. your rights differ from those of other americans right now we have absolutely no representation in the house and the senate the congress controls our budget local money no representation in congress yet residents of d.c. pay the highest federal taxes per capita compared to any other state some say that what's happening here in d.c. is taxation without representation is that essentially what's happening when it's quite literally true it's true that i represent the the residents of the district of columbia the capital city of the united states and it's true that i voted in committee and it's true that i have every privilege of every other member but when it comes to the final vote on the house floor. district residents

have never had voting rights and d.c. congresswoman eleanor holmes norton came close to winning equal rights for the district back in two thousand and nine only because. the ferias amendment that would have wiped out all our gun laws was a tax to the bill do i not have the house vote right now. opponents of granting d.c. citizens voting rights point to the constitution it states quote representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers counting the whole number of persons in each state excluding indians not taxed but the interpretation has been widely debated i feel confident that the courts would find that there are no citizens of the united states who should not have representation in the national legislature that would that would separate us out from every nation in the world proposals to get full voting rights to the district include legislation to amend the constitution to declaring the capital the fifty

first state it's very not equal for the district of columbia's six hundred twenty thousand citizens to have no right to vote for the members of the house or congress and yet have to pay taxes send their kids in the military overseas in foreign wars we have a military that serves our country sacrifices dies for the country dies for democracy around the world yet they come home and they do not have it right here in the nation's capital u.s. territories like and puerto rico also have members of congress but these island territories don't pay federal taxes so that makes the capital of the united states the last place where the phrase taxation without representation still rings true in washington is wall party. all right an update for you now it has now been four months to the day since wiki leaks founder julian assange has been holed up in the

ecuadorian embassy and london. and still there has been no forward progress in this political impasse a sonorous granted political asylum by ecuador on aug sixteenth but u.k. officials refuse to allow the wiki leaks founder to leave the embassy and a sonder fuses to sneak out as other asylum seekers have done in the past meanwhile a new report coming out this week demonstrates america's persistence in the issue in terms of classified document drops new or newly released cable show that australia has been handing over key intelligence on julian assange to washington for over two years this latest information adds yet another layer to the convoluted picture of the players involved in this case it could also make a case for keeping a songe out of sweden and consequently away from american influence all right well that's going to do it for now for we're going to be back here next week we've got a brand new lineup for you first up get ready for the next installment of the made

for t.v. drama known as the u.s. presidential debates this time the two candidates will be honing in on foreign policy issues so will this chunk of ninety minutes be able to sway independent voters to check the box for either president obama or mitt romney or is this the horse and pony show next week will bring you a wrap up. and despite popular belief mitt romney and barack obama are not only candidates for president this year next week for the first time this election cycle voters are going to have a chance to wash notable third party candidates square off in a debate of their very own and big picture host tom hartman will be part of the an expert panel at the debate so stay tuned and last but not least it seems like so long ago but this tuesday marks the one year anniversary of libya's liberation we'll show you where the country has come from the hurdles that face the past year and take a look into the future of the country those are just

a few of the stories we have in store for you next week along with more news and in-depth interviews so keep it tuned in right here to r.t. and that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r.t. america we post all of our interviews online in full there and to check out the latest information on the stories we covered today and a few that we didn't have time to get to go to our website r t dot com slash usa and to find out what i'm doing when i'm not reporting the news and attach to this desk follow me on twitter at meghan underscore lopez today i asked you guys what you want us to cover this election season sam sachs and i will be on the desk on election night and.